Chronic autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and vasculitis, affect approximately eight percent of the population in industrialised countries. In many cases, the disease has a mild progression, but can also lead to a chronic and serious illness.

Which patients will develop a severe course of autoimmune diseases?

"There is currently no means to distinguish at the outset those patients who will suffer from frequent relapses, and therefore need intensive early treatment, from those who do not. Titrating the use of immunosupression to the disease activity and developing novel treatment strategies consequently requires the application of precision medicine to autoimmunity – a concept already established in cancer treatment,” states Prof. Renate Kain, coordinator of the project.

In order to better understand the common mechanisms of these diseases, the RELENT project will analyse data from a variety of measurements (clinical, serological, genetic, transcriptome) and thus develop new bio-markers for these diseases. These should allow the tailoring of the most efficacious treatment to each patient with a chronic autoimmune disease. Nearly six million Euros has been awarded to the RELENT consortium for the next 4.5 years by the European Commission under its Horizon 2020 programme.

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RELENT has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668036.The views expressed here are the responsibility of the authors only. The EU Commission takes no responsibility for any use made of the information set out.